


love at first f(l)ight

by helloshepard



Series: kaiju fic [2]
Category: Godzilla - All Media Types, Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019)
Genre: Injury Recovery, M/M, Miscommunication, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 12:37:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20447282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helloshepard/pseuds/helloshepard
Summary: Though the left side of his King always remained awake, the right side of his King always seemed to have His eyes fixed on Rodan. Initially, he had not been sure whether to be flattered or afraid of this near-constant attention, though as the days slipped into weeks, the novel strangeness wore off. His King’s function was to protect, after all—perhaps this was his way of protecting.Or, Rodan tries to understand Ghidorah.





	love at first f(l)ight

**Author's Note:**

> It's heeeere! Unbeta'd, barely edited, rodorah!

Every morning before the sun rose, Rodan woke. 

He shook off the sand and dust from his wings. 

He patrolled his island, taking note of which structures the worshippers were rebuilding, how many dead creatures had washed up on the shore during the night. 

Once the sun had risen fully, he patrolled his slowly-shrinking territory. His wound was not completely healed—it stung like ice when he flew too far, sending freezing pain down his neck and chest until he gave in and fled back to his island—to his volcano. 

He immersed himself in the lava until the heat engulfed him, seeping into his wounds like a hot balm. He sat long enough for the pain to subside, long enough for the sun to reach and pass its highest point in the sky. 

Rodan knew he would have already healed if he had continued sleeping in his volcano instead of on the beach. That fact, once known, was disregarded in favor of the way he felt utterly, _completely _safe as he slept beside his King, though his King never seemed to sleep—not like He had when He was recovering. Though Rodan had believed it his duty to watch over his king, the leftmost set of His eyes always remained awake and vigilantfearful?.

Was that how the mothsモスラ, バトラ felt as they slept beside their defenders? Totally safe, shielded from anything that might do them harm? If his memory was correct, it had been barely three months since His King’s return, less than two weeks since His other heads had emerged, and already Rodan could not imagine what it would be like to  _ not  _ sleep beside his King at night. 

Rodan spent his time in the volcano watching his King watch him. 

Though the left side of his King always remained awake, the right side of his King always seemed to have His eyes fixed on Rodan. Initially, he had not been sure whether to be flattered or afraid of this near-constant attention, though as the days slipped into weeks, the novel strangeness wore off. His King’s function  _ was  _ to protect, after all—perhaps this was his way of protecting. 

When the cold, stinging pain had been replaced by a comfortable burn, Rodan emerged from his volcano. He shook off the excess lava, splattering the dead metal birds that had made a home in his island. Rodan  _ still  _ wasn’t sure why they had not yet learned to stay away when he was coming out of the volcano. Their sputtering cries irked him almost as much as the way their lava-clipped wings torpedoed them into the craggy rock under his feet amused him. 

As always, his King watched the display—by now, all three of His heads would turn to watch as the metal birds sang their last songs and Rodan cooled off. They both knew what was next.

Their fights lacked the frenzied, vicious quality of their first meeting. His King could not yet fly, but what he lacked in speed he made up for in cunning—watching Rodan from all angles, heads snaking around to inflict quick, stinging bites on his shoulders and wings. 

The worshipers had long ago been trained to give his King a wide berth. They busied themselves with cleaning the piles of deadempty animals that continued to wash up on their shore, but even they had learned to vacate the beach when Rodan and his King were entangled. 

Other than the worshipers, the only life on the island were the dead metal birds that died every day because they were unable to remember how hot lava was. Even the fish that Rodan had taught his King to eat had not lasted long before retreating back to deeperalive waters.

The right head—the one that always watched him—was always the one to instigate the scuffle. It started innocently enough, with a nip on a wing or His snout pressed too insistently into the back of Rodan’s neck. Irritated, Rodan swatted His head away—the first time, he had been  _ mortified:  _ it was  _ rude,  _ moreover he had just shoved away his  _ Kingprotector— _ but his King had merely watched when Rodan flared his wings and screeched. 

In what Rodan was  _ very  _ certain was a mockery of his irritated posturing, the horns on his King’s head had perked up as He struggled to stretch His new wings to their limited—albeit still  _ very _ impressive—full width.

_ That  _ had been enough to prompt Rodan to barrel into his King, mortification taking a backseat to delight as they tumbled in the sand, snarling and biting into flesh and rock.

It had taken three days for Rodan to realize his King was  _ asking  _ for a fight. He  _ wanted  _ to fight. The realization made Rodan’s blood run cold for exactly half a second before something white-hot and utterly intoxicating flared up in its place. 

Rodan would have done it anyway, but it  _ did  _ feel nice to be asked. 

Rodan snapped at his King's heads, at the new flesh on his wings. In retaliation, the King bit his neck, never hard enough to drip molten blood, but enough to break off bits of his armor. He had learned his King's fighting style after the first week, and the King had learned his not long after. 

Distantly, Rodan could hear the worshippers and their terrified exclamations as the fights kicked up sand and leveled trees. The worshippers were smarter than the metal birds, and knew to keep their distance, to admire Rodan from afar. 

And then, one day, his King flew.

It was in the middle of their daily scuffle—his King had used His right and left heads to pin him to the ground in a way that somehow managed to be terrifyingly delightful, and the middle head nosed the stony feathers on his back. Rodan snorted sand out of his nostrils and considered whether or not he should feel  _ this  _ delighted, when the two heads bit down on his wings and  _ pulled.  _

His King was large enough to shield Rodan from all but the most cutting wind. It tugged painfully at his stone armor, pulling bits of rock from his body as the King pulled them up, until the island was a little more than a brown smudge against a deep blue background. The King pulled him up even further, where the air was thin and Rodan felt his blood beginning to thicken.

Rodan twisted, pulling one wing free to grab futilely at the scales on his King’s legs. His King bellowed, triumphant, and let Rodan go. 

Rodan echoed the call with one of his own, tucking his wings against his body as he allowed himself to fall, twisting and turning in midair. 

He had never done this before, but he  _ knew  _ his King would come back for him. He had watched from afar as others of his kind tumbled through the sky, twisting and turning as they plummeted to the earth in a deadly embrace, not letting go until their wings grazed the ground.

When he was younger, he had stumbled upon a pair of corpsesmates—long dead, hardly anything more than piles of broken bones, but he had known what they were, and for the first time in his life, he had been afraid. 

He had been afraid—afraid he would end up like the others of his kind, too weak and stupid to let go before they hit the ground, left to rot as the world passed by around them.

His King would come back for him. Faster than he thought possible, the ocean came into focus, from solidly dark blue to blue peppered with white waves. 

Rodan watched the empty sky give way to the vast expanse of water. He had fallen first—his King should be behind him, but Rodan did not dare turn back. 

His heart pounded hot blood as he spiraled towards the water, faster and faster—

Clawed feet locked onto his own. He cried out, from elation rather than pain as his wing-claws gripped his King's scales, his horns as they tumbled to the ocean. 

Rodan felt hot breath against his neck. The right head—maybe the middle—had its snout pressed against the dip between Rodan's neck and his shoulder, breathing in and out as though He were trying to taste him. At the touch, the fire in his chest was building to a roaring crescendo—they would have to let go soon, to separate and fly back to the island. 

He didn't  _ want  _ to. 

He wanted to stay like this forever, with his King's warm breath against his neck, the blazing heat in his chest that was quickly spreading throughout his body like a wildfire. 

Rodan felt his King’s newly-healed wings wrap around his body. He felt rough scales against his belly, heard the wind whistling as they plummeted down, down,  _ down— _

Together, they hit the water. 

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always appreciated!


End file.
